Refrain, Immediate Poster!

This piece about grieving and social media was going around Facebook, so I read it, since I’m still learning a lot of Facebook do’s and don’ts. But what I found here felt like shockingly common sense. All it said was unless you’re the immediate family of a recently-deceased person, don’t post on social media about their passing, especially right after the person has died. At least let the family have a chance to breathe, for crap’s sake! Once they have posted, then offer your sympathy. But don’t post a quick “RIP” message on the dead person’s wall, then causing a deluge of questions to befall the poor, grieving family.

I stared at this, in disbelief. How do people not know this? Never, when I was growing up, did I feel the need to call the immediate family of someone who had died before the body was even cold to tell them I heard the news and I was sorry. I gave them some friggin time! But then I had to remind myself that we didn’t have Facebook, Twitter and all the things. Nothing was as instant as it is now.

It’s moments like this when I really feel like I’m old, and that change sneaked up on me and I didn’t even see it coming.